The woman at the next table lifted her chin.
“So was hiding behind the plant?” she asked.
A few nervous laughs moved through the room.
Richard’s face tightened.
He reached for Genevieve’s arm.
The wounded boss raised the recovered pistol by half an inch.
Richard withdrew his hand.
“Right,” he muttered.
“Fine.
I’ll send you your share of the bill.”
Genevieve looked at the overturned wine, broken plates, and blood marking the white tablecloth.
“Send it to the planter.”
Richard left without another word.
The police separated the witnesses while paramedics examined the wounded boss.
His protection detail produced lawyers with startling speed.
No officer seemed surprised that every answer they received was technically cooperative and practically useless.
Genevieve remained at the booth.
She answered only what she had personally seen.
Three men entered.
One displayed a weapon.
The wounded man defended himself.
She had possessed an antique firearm that she believed required return to its legal owner.
That last statement caused a detective to pause.
“Legal owner?” he asked.
“Ownership is my profession,” Genevieve replied.
The boss watched her from the paramedic’s chair.
The pistol had been sealed inside an evidence bag, but his eyes kept returning to it.
When the detective moved away, he called Genevieve over.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
She stood before him with her Hermès bag hanging from one arm.
“This afternoon, Cromwell and Hayes received a private consignment,” she said.
“A seventeenth-century Venetian document case.
Poorly restored.
Moderately valuable.
The consignor insisted on an immediate cash valuation.”
“And the gun was inside.”
“In a false compartment beneath the lining.”
“Who brought it?”
“A courier.
The paperwork listed a shell company registered in Delaware.”
The boss’s expression sharpened.
Genevieve continued.
“The company owns a warehouse in Red Hook.
The warehouse was leased last year through a real estate attorney who has represented three Calabresi-controlled businesses.”
He studied her for a long moment.
“You learned all of that in one afternoon?”
“I was bored.”
The faint amusement returned to his face, but it vanished when she removed a small envelope from her bag.
Inside were photographs of the document case, the concealed compartment, the pistol as it had been discovered, and the original consignment sheet.
“I made copies before I left the office,” she said.
“You expected trouble?”
“I expected someone to come looking for an object this important.”
“Why carry it to dinner?”
“The vault at Cromwell and Hayes is secure against ordinary thieves.
This was not an ordinary theft.”
He glanced toward the arrested Calabresi men.
